COVID-19 update: 16 cases now confirmed in county

–On Friday at 3:30 p.m., the County of San Luis Obispo went live on Facebook to discuss the latest updates regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. At this time, 16 local residents have tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, according to County Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein.

Seven of the patients reside in the North County, five in the South County, three on the coast and one in the San Luis Obispo central area, Borenstein says. All are recovering at home.

Seven of the infected patients in SLO County are ages 19-64 years old. Nine are aged 65 years or older.

All 16 patients infected in the county are still at home, not hospitalized, and are doing well, Borenstein said.

“We expect cases to increase,” she said. The county expects a doubling of cases every three to five days, based on current modeling, she said.

So far, the county has conducted 261 tests. An additional lab that has been testing local patients from both San Luis Obispo County and Santa Maria has tested 282 samples.

Transmission of the COVID-19 virus appears to be caused by close and prolonged contact, she said. The greater the illness has affected someone, the more likely they are to transmit it to other people, she said. Asymptomatic transmission, if occurring at all, is a minor proportion of infections, she said. Airborne infection appears to be limited to someone infected who coughs or sneezes and vapor droplets may linger for a short period of time. But neither asymptomatic transmission nor airborne transmission appear to be a dominant means of transmission, she said. The virus does tend to transfer well with human contact, like shaking hands, and linger on hard surfaces, studies have shown.

The county asks residents to only purchase grocery items needed and not to hoard. Supply chains to local stores are in good condition, the county reports. No evictions of renters affected by the pandemic will be permitted at this time, the county says.

The county health department will continue updating its statistics daily on its COVID-19 website, readyslo.org.

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News staff of the Paso Robles Daily News wrote and edited this story from local contributors and press releases. Scott Brennan is the publisher of this newspaper and founder of Access Publishing. Connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or follow his blog. He can be reached at scott@pasoroblesdailynews.com.